EUROPE: A second vote would be fair

Although, the result of the recent referendum was for Brexit, in the UK any referendum is, legally, advisory. Parliament is sovereign.

We voted for politicians to make the best decisions for this country.

Before we can trigger Brexit, Parliament must vote to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act.

I ask your readers to write to their Member of Parliament and urge her/him to refuse to vote for that repeal.

I acknowledge that such a refusal would disappoint many of the majority who voted Leave.

However, a number of issues have emerged which suggest we need to reconsider and review the Brexit decision, namely economic reaction to currency and share markets, the almost immediate removal of the ‘promises’ of the Leave campaign to fund the NHS and reduce immigration, the lack of any coherent Leave plan, and the amount of ‘Bregret’ being expressed.

If Parliament refused to vote for the repeal of the 1972 European Communities act and voted for a second referendum, and this time the Leave campaign was charged with presenting a coherent Leave plan, previous Leave voters can vote Leave again.

The second vote would insure against any claims of unfairness.

There are precedents for second votes – when Denmark voted against the Maastricht treaty, or when Ireland voted against the Nice and Lisbon treaties, the first vote was Against and they held a second vote.

In order to call union members in health, education, transport or fire services out on strike, the minimum requirement is that 40 per cent of the population eligible to vote must vote in favour.

In the referendum, with a turnout of 72 per cent and 17.4million voting Leave, this is 37 per cent of the voting population – a 37 per cent which contains an indeterminate number of people who seriously regret what they did.

To take any action based on this number of votes wouldn’t be allowed by any of our essential services.